United Provinces

The United Provinces (1581-1795), also called the Dutch Republic, was a republic in Europe lasting in 1581 to 1795. With its capital at Amsterdam, it had an empire that spanned across the world, on six of seven continents. The Dutch gained independence from Spain in 1581, but it would not be until 1648 when they finally were recognized. In 1795, their independence was ended when the French Republic conquered them and made them the "Batavian Republic".

History
In 1568, the Dutch Revolt (Eighty Years War) began when the Protestant Dutch rebelled against the Catholic Spanish, who controlled the present-day Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg as the "Spanish Netherlands". The Dutch, led by Justin the Silent, Maurice of Nassau, and others, fought a long independence struggle against Spain, and after the truce of 1607 they were able to build trading posts and forts across the world. On every inhabited continent, the Dutch set up trading posts that gained them troves of treasure and money.

However, this brought them into a conflict with the Portuguese Empire for over 60 years, fighting a war across the planet in order to achieve trade domination. Portugal was technically a part of Spain by the Iberian Union, led by the kings of Spain after the last king of Portugal died childless in 1579. The Iberian Union ended in 1640 when Portugal achieved its independence from Spain during the Thirty Years War, and the Dutch lost the support of their traditional ally in Protestant England, who allied with Portugal as well. The Dutch fought a series of wars with England from the 1650s to the 1670s over trade as well, mainly a naval contest that figures such as Maarten Tromp and Michiel de Ruyter won for the Dutch. The Dutch continued fighting Portugal until 1667, and the Portuguese won a strategic victory; although the Dutch gained several new lands, the Portuguese retained most of theirs. At the same time, they lost Formosa to the Zheng clan of Koxinga, who built a base on the island.

While their colonial ambitions thrived, the Dutch were attacked by France in the 1660s until the 1790s. They were in personal union with Great Britain from 1688 to 1701 and allies with them afterwards. In the War of the Spanish Succession, they united the Netherlands under a single banner when they took over the Spanish Netherlands, and they reclaimed Trinidad and Tobago from the Pirates. The Dutch fought France and Spain again in the War of the Austrian Succession in the 1740s and the Seven Years War in 1756-1763, both of which were defeats on land. Dutch naval power was forever broken after the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of 1780-1783, losing the Battle of Dogger Bank to Great Britain in a spinoff of the American Revolutionary War.

In the aftermath of the war, they continued to thrive until the French revolutionary government randomly declared war on them in 1793. in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Dutch were conquered by France, and a puppet "Batavian Republic" was declared.